An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

government.
• The frequent need to process and respond almost immediately.
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181
Listening
Issues in Listening 
Models of Listening 
We have come a long way in our understanding of how people manage to make 
sense of what they hear. The last half-century has seen the development of successive 
theories or models of comprehension, reflecting contemporary knowledge, 
concerns and technology. We will summarize four of the most important. 
Communication Theory Model
‘Communication Theory’ or, more precisely, ‘the mathematical theory of com-
munication’ (Shannon and Weaver, 1949), was intended to make telecommunica-
tions systems more efficient. CT has given us terms such as ‘transmission’, ‘signal’, 
‘reception’ and ‘noise’. Since it was developed to solve an engineering problem, 
human participation in the process of communication was peripheral: ‘[T]he con-
cern was with intelligibility rather than perception, and the results were used 
to evaluate equipment rather than listeners’ (Licklider and Miller, 1951: 1040). 
CT researchers themselves had warned against assuming that their work reflected 
human comprehension; nevertheless, CT stimulated thinking about the ways in 
which comprehension could not be characterized in terms of straightforward re-
ception of a message. 
Information Processing Model
The second type of comprehension model, ‘Information Processing’, was strongly 
influenced by research in computing and artificial intelligence. Central to 
information processing are the concepts of input, processing and output, with 
the human being seen as a limited processor, so that when doing complex tasks, 
we have to devote more attention to one aspect of the task and less to another. 
Typical information processing models are ‘Perception, Parsing and Utilization’ 
(Anderson, 1985) and ‘Identify, Search, File and Use’ (Brown, 1995a). Although 
both imply ‘stages’ of understanding, it is now recognized that listeners are only 
able to achieve real-time processing by resorting to parallel distributed processing. 
This entails integrating information from multiple sources simultaneously, 
and working ‘bottom-up’ (looking for clues in linguistic input) and ‘top-down’ 
(activating background knowledge and exploiting context). 
Social/Contextual Model
A third type of listening model is the Social/Contextual, in which human beings 
are considered much more than (relatively limited) processors, and comprehension 
is seen as ‘a cognitive process … that unites the social and the individual’ (Ohta, 
2000: 54). In the social/contextual model, in contrast to communications 
theory and information processing, we are seen as participants in and creators 
of meaning, and meanings are achieved in the interactional space between us 
and not just inside our individual heads. Even in highly constrained contexts, 
such as those investigated in controlled experiments, conversational partners 
negotiate meanings and work towards a ‘mutual cognitive environment’ (Sperber 
and Wilson, 1995: 61). Context is assigned a primary role by writers adopting 
the social-constructive view of language, such as van Lier (1996, 2000), who has 
argued against the widespread use of computing metaphors such as ‘input’ and 

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182 An Introduction to Applied Linguistics
‘output’ on the grounds that they are misleading and belie the active participation 
of the successful listener in interaction. 
Situated Action Model
Finally, a more speculative alternative to information processing models comes 
from work on the evolution of language and society. Evolutionary psychologists 
argue that humans spend much of their time trying to understand in order to 
do things (‘situated action’), rather than to archive information in memory, as 
information processing approaches assume. Barsalou (1999) claims that language 
evolved from the need to control the actions of others in activities such as 
hunting, gathering and simple industry: ‘[T]he foundational properties of human 
language today reflect those evolutionary pressures then. Formal education and 
science have occurred much too recently to have had such impact’ (Barsalou, 
1999: 66). Supporters of the situated action model do not entirely rule out an 
archival function for comprehension, but emphasize that our daily interactions 
are more often oriented towards future action, for example, where to shop for 
fresh food or how best to treat a child with a sinus infection. 
These four comprehension models are complementary rather than mutually 
exclusive. Even the most limited, the communication theory model, adequately 
describes certain limited listening tasks, such as taking down someone’s mobile 
number. As we investigate the full range of listening tasks, we find that the different 
elements required for successful listening are best explained by a combination of 
the comprehension models available. 
Types of Listening 
We can divide listening into two main modes: One-way listening and two-way 
(‘reciprocal’ or ‘interactional’) listening. These modes intersect with two principal 
functions of language: ‘transaction’ and ‘interaction’ (Brown and Yule, 1983). 
Transaction has as its main purpose the transfer of information, while the primary 
function of interaction is the maintenance of social relations. While it is true,